Sons Of Anarchy's Aon Rud Persanta: Shot Through The Neck, And You're To Blame

Well I’ll be damned. After a couple of decent but generic episodes, like last week’s slow roller, Sons of Anarchy revved it up to 11 tonight for “Aod Rud Persanta,” which abruptly put a dead end to quite a few of the show’s ongoing storylines in a most bloody fashion. It was how Ocean’s Eleven would have gone if Danny Ocean were the bearded president of a badass motorcycle club, instead of just some guy in a suit. Everything has changed for SAMCRO now, and it’s all for the better. Let’s start this one off by pouring one for the evil bastard homies.

R.I.P. Clay Morrow – “This time it was unanimous.”

No, I probably don’t mean “peace” up there. Clay has done as much fucked up shit as any TV character ever has, and I have wished for his death for ages. I hate to agree with Tara at any point, but she said it best with, “Clay Morrow should have been dead a long time ago,” making Gemma feel super awesome in the process, no doubt. That said, I’ll definitely miss Ron Perlman’s gigantic face, and hopefully he’ll move on to Hellboy III now. Maybe Jax can send a couple of threats Guillermo del Toro’s way to ensure that.

That said, I didn’t allow myself to see Clay’s death coming at all, even when he laid it out for everyone by telling Gemma the boys had a different plan in mind. I was absolutely convinced Jax would pull a dumb wild card out of his back pocket, sending Clay off into the world a hunted man. But instead, he blew the side of his neck clean out, and then tagged him in the chest a few more times. And it was awesome. It would have been more awesome to see Clay suffer for longer; even though he’s made his atonements from jail this season. I still haven’t forgiven him for being such a tool for so many decades. I could spend a lot longer talking about what it means for Jax to have finally killed his stand-in father and leader, and how that ties into the Hamlet synchronicity, but there are more things to talk about, and Clay doesn’t deserve our time. But it served Clay right to stand there before his “peers,” dying not with pride but with shame.

I’ve spent time wondering why Jax cared at all about getting Tara’s name cleared with Patterson when making his play to get Gaalan caught with the guns. And now, it’s obvious that he never really meant to make good on his part of the deal at all, at least not in the way that the D.A. was privy to. Once again, the show played me like a broken piano, as I wondered why there were two Sons waiting around at the warehouse where the Cops vs. Irish showdown was going to take place. Of course everything was a set up. It’s always when things are spelled out that I choose to pretend letters don’t exist.

This less surprising table vote was acted out perfectly with Gaalan’s surprising death, along with his two goons. I fucking hated Gaalan even more than Clay, because he wasn’t the enemy you kept close; he was the enemy you wanted on the other side of the planet as you thought about wringing his (racial epithet) neck with gloves made out of steel wool and glass shards as he hung off the side of a building by his feet. Also, he’s got shit smeared all over his face.

With Connor now the de facto head honcho as far as Irish ties go, it’ll be interesting to see if the Kings take this the wrong way and throw more firepower at SAMCRO, especially since he’s trying to force them into using a black man for gun distribution. But Jax’s well-acted verbal truce signing with Connor was enough to show me they might just be getting over this Irish hump, which would mean it’s just the local authorities after the club now. Just how they like it.

R.I.P. That one cop – “Why are we pink?”

I always like watching the boys execute a plan, and breaking Clay out of transport was one of their finer moments, and everything went smooth as silk. Assuming of course that silk involves Juice running down a transport officer after he shoots Bobby in the shoulder. I mean, I’m not saying that this wasn’t the correct line of action for Juice to have taken, but why would they let the man with the gigantic albatross hanging around his neck get behind the wheel on such an important mission. Everyone knows this guy is crazy now, right? I mean, maybe he felt a little better once Clay forgave him for helping frame him, but he’s still responsible for the club’s latest setback.

Because they had to call Tara in to get the bullet out of Bobby, they unknowingly sealed their own fate, as Tara can now implicate them in Clay’s escape and the death of the officer. Now we just have to wait and see if she actually does it. She doesn’t have a clear path out with the boys any way she goes. And where she thought she had a locked-up custody case, it turns out her fake miscarriage could work heavily against her. Serves her right for thinking she could come up with a plan that would screw everyone else. Now if someone could just call child services…

It’s high time Patterson gets off of her political high horse and gets into the battle herself, because she’s running out of people to fight her battles, and I don’t think Roosevelt will be on her side when it’s time to make the call. I guess we’ll see next week. If only that episode was called “Patterson Gets Buck.”

Stuff That Fell Off the Back of the Bike

The nice long bike ride before the opening titles was a proper slice of calm before the storm.

How many times is this series going to begin its episodes inside either Thomas or Abel’s room? It’s either Tara checking on them or Jax writing to them in his memoir. Take a shot for that one, and also any time someone is shown to be “keeping an eye on” someone else.

Someone please tell me why Kim Coates isn’t the third most popular action star on the planet yet?

“It’s just dirty and sad.” Unser was in top form tonight, calling Gemma out on all her “I want to raise these kids” bullshit. It got kind of awkward when he came right out and told her he was in love with her, which they’ve been driving towards for ages now, but I’m glad he finally got it off his chest. If only she’d have given him some head in reciprocation. While a prison guard watched.

“Where the hell are the Irish?” “In Ireland.”

As sad as it is to see Jax working with the cops yet again, even by his own terms, it’s still nice that he doesn’t have to do it behind the club’s collective back. That shit got old.

“Then we swear on a stack of Catholic Bibles.”

So why is Juice the one who has to help Tara get the bullet out of Bobby’s shoulder? Does being the bitch make him a better surgeon?

When Nero starts to tell Gemma “That stuff with Clay?” the first thing she says is, “I didn’t know.” What kind of person follows a question that way? I’m pretty sure Nero’s next words weren’t going to be, “Did you know?”

I felt kind of terrible that Thomas got the books to show Tara, who immediately had to leave. Power to Unser for making everyone laugh with his crazy macaroni and cheese talk.